r tails, and
catch flies for their dinner."

"What think they on, Gaffer?"

"Nay, thou art beyond me there. I never was a fish. How can I tell
thee?"

"Would they bite me?" demanded Clare solemnly.

"Nay, I reckon not."

"What, not a wild fish?" said Clare, opening her dark blue eyes.

Mr Avery laughed, and shook his head.

"But I would fain know--And, O Gaffer!" exclaimed the child, suddenly
interrupting herself, "do tell me, why did Tom kill the pig?"

"Kill the pig? Why, for that my Clare should have somewhat to eat at
her dinner and her supper."

"Killed him to eat him?" wonderingly asked Clare, who had never
associated live pigs with roast pork.

"For sure," replied her grandfather.

"Then he had not done somewhat naughty?"

"Nay, not he."

"I would, Gaffer," said Clare, very gravely, "that Tom had not smothered
the pig ere he began to lay eggs. [The genuine speech of a child of
Clare's age.] I would so have liked a _little_ pig!"

The suggestion of pig's eggs was too much for Mr Avery's gravity. "And
what hadst done with a little pig, my maid."

"I would have washed it, and donned it, and put it abed," said Clare.

"Methinks he should soon have marred his raiment. And maybe he should
have loved cold water not more dearly than a certain little maid that I
could put a name to."

Clare adroitly turned from this perilous topic, with an unreasoning
dread of being washed there and then; though in truth it was not
cleanliness to which she objected, but wet chills and rough friction.

"Gaffer, may I go with Bab to four-hours unto Mistress Pendexter?"

"An' thou wilt, my little floweret."

Mr Avery rose slowly, and taking Clare by the hand, went back to the
house. He returned to his turret-study, but Clare scampered upstairs,
possessed herself of her doll, and ran in and out of the inhabited rooms
until she discovered Barbara in the kitchen, beating up eggs for a
pudding.

"Bab, I may go with thee!"

"Go with me?" repeated Barbara, looking up with some surprise. "Marry,
Mrs Clare, I hope you may."

"To Mistress Pendexter!" shouted Clare ecstatically.

"Oh ay!" assented Barbara. "Saith the master so?"

Clare nodded. "And, Bab, shall I take Doll?"

This contraction for Dorothy must have been the favourite name with the
little ladies of the time for the plaything on which it is now
inalienably fixed.

"I will sew up yon hole in her gown, then, first," said Barbara, taking
the dol